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  He was handcuffed and on his knees in a white dungeon, and the world was dying of a virus bearing her name, and he was talking about a fruit.

  “Rhambutan,” she echoed.

  “And we think that you might be connected to Rachelle,” he said.

  “Rachelle.”

  He stared at her for a long moment. Then he turned away and whispered under his breath. “Man, oh man. This is crazy.”

  She didn’t know why he thought she would be connected to Rachelle, and for the moment it really didn’t matter—he was clearly given to fantasy. What did matter, on the other hand, was the fact that Thomas was the only one who seemed to be able to find her. She glanced at the camera again. They had to be careful.

  “They’re listening. Sit by my bed with your back to the opposite wall.”

  He seemed to understand. She helped him across the room and he sat heavily, cross-legged, facing her mattress.

  “If we talk quietly, they may not hear us,” she said, easing herself onto the mattress.

  “Closer,” he said.

  She scooted closer, so that their knees were nearly touching.

  “How did you find me?” she asked.

  He stared at her, then past her. “First the virus. It’s been released.”

  “I . . . I know,” she said. “How bad is it?”

  “Bad. Twenty-four gateway airports. It’s spreading unchecked.”

  “They haven’t closed the airports?”

  “Won’t slow the virus enough to justify the panic.” His voice was clearer now—the drug was wearing off quickly. “When I left Washington, only the affected governments were even aware that the virus existed. But they can’t keep it quiet for long. The whole world’s going to wake up to it one of these days.”

  She swore softly in French. “I can’t believe this happened! We took every precaution. It wasn’t just heating the vaccine to a precise heat; it was holding it there for two hours. One hour and fifty minutes or two hours and ten minutes, and the mutation doesn’t hold.”

  “It’s not your fault.”

  “Maybe not, but you do know that my vaccine was actually a virus that—”

  “Yes, I know all about your vaccine actually being a virus; you told me that in Bangkok. And it was a brilliant solution to some very big problems. If anyone is to blame here, it’s me. I was the one who told the world how your vaccine could be changed into the virus it’s become.”

  “Through your dreams.”

  “Yes. Where you’re connected to Rachelle.”

  She didn’t want to talk to him about these dreams right now. He’d looked at her strangely each time he’d claimed that she was connected to Rachelle.

  She refocused the discussion, keeping her voice to a whisper. “Do they know who’s behind this? Do they know where we are?”

  “The French are involved. Or at least some rogue elements in the French government. That’s the prevailing theory. Svensson’s not on his own—he’s the man behind the virus, but there’s a lot more to this than the virus. They call themselves the New Allegiance, and they’re demanding huge caches of nuclear arms from all the nuclear countries in exchange for the antivirus.”

  “They’ll never agree!”

  “They are already,” he said. “China and Russia. The United States is preparing to comply.” He blinked and she wondered how true that was. “Others. Israel may be a problem, but with enough pressure they’ll probably go along. The prospect of whole populations dying off in a matter of weeks trumps any other logic. This all comes down to the antivirus.”

  “What about my father? Is the company looking for a way?”

  “Your father is screaming bloody murder in Bangkok, but apart from trying to find an antivirus, there’s not a lot he can do. Everyone’s looking for a way—another reason to delay telling the public. If they do find a way to stop the virus, panic will never have a chance to gain momentum.”

  “They have leads, then.”

  “No. Not that I’ve heard. Not besides you.”

  “You mean the back door.”

  “I’m guessing that’s why Svensson took you in the first place. Did your key survive the mutation?”

  Someone had obviously filled him in. “Yes. And I think I may be able to create a virus that will render the Raison Strain impotent. Hopefully.”

  He exhaled and closed his eyes. “Thank God.”

  “Unfortunately, I’m here. And now so are you.”

  “Did you give it to Svensson? And what do you mean hopefully ?”

  “Hopefully, as in I haven’t actually tried it yet. I gave it to them twenty-four hours ago.”

  “Can you tell me what this virus-killer looks like?”

  She knew what he was asking. If they were separated, or if he escaped but not she, he could carry the information to the outside world. But the antivirus in her mind was far too complex for anyone without an education in genetics to remember, much less understand.

  “I don’t think so.”

  “You don’t think so because you don’t know how to or because it’s too complicated?”

  “I would need to write it down.”

  “Then write it down.”

  “It is.”

  “Where?”

  “By the computer.” She glanced over his shoulder at the work station. “I would much rather you just take me out of here.”

  “Trust me, I’m not going anywhere without you. I’d never hear the end of it.”

  “From whom?”

  “From Rachelle,” he said.

  THOMAS’S HEAD slowly cleared. The handcuffs bit deep—there was nothing he could do about them. They had to get out with the antivirus, but there was nothing he could do about that at the moment either. The only thing he could do anything about right now was Monique.

  He looked into her brown eyes and wondered if Rachelle really was in there somewhere, now, at this very moment. Honestly, looking at Monique now, he wasn’t sure that she was Rachelle.

  He glanced at Monique’s right forefinger. The cut was there, exactly like Rachelle’s. He looked into her eyes again. The last time he’d seen Monique was in Thailand last week. But that was fifteen years ago, before he’d married Rachelle. Odd.

  Monique’s full understanding of the situation might have critical and practical value, however. If they became separated and Monique knew that she could connect with Rachelle, she might find a way to do what Rachelle had done. She might be able to dream as Rachelle if need be.

  Thomas considered this as he stared into her eyes.

  Monique broke off the stare. “Who’s Rachelle?”

  Both women shared the same fiery spirit. The same sharp nose. But as far as he could see, that was where the similarities ended.

  “Thomas?”

  “Rachelle?”

  “Yes, Rachelle,” Monique said.

  “Sorry. Well, you know how I’ve told you about my dreams. How I learned about the Raison Strain from the Books of Histories in my dreams.”

  “How could I forget?”

  “Exactly. Every time I fall asleep, I wake up in another reality with people and . . . and everything. I’m married there.”

  “Rachelle is your wife,” she said.

  She knew! “You remember?”

  She stared at him, and for a moment he thought she did remember.

  “Remember what?”

  Why had he said that? “I don’t know exactly how it works, but Rachelle dreamed she was you. She told me where to find you.”

  He paused. “You might be Rachelle. I . . . we don’t know.”

  Monique stood. Thomas couldn’t tell if she was offended or just startled. “And what on earth brought you to that conclusion?”

  “You have a paper cut on your right forefinger. I know that because Rachelle woke up with a paper cut on her right forefinger. If you and Rachelle are not the same, at least Rachelle is sharing your experiences.”

  Monique lifted her finger and glanced at a tiny red mark
. Then she lowered her hand and slowly looked to Thomas.

  “Your wife’s in danger.”

  The door bolt slammed open. Monique’s eyes widened and shifted over his shoulder.

  MIKE OREAR had been sure that Theresa was overreacting. She had taken the full brunt of the virus’s threat head-on and come away reeling. He didn’t doubt any of her facts. It was true, a man named Valborg Svensson had released a virus that had mutated from the Raison Vaccine. The virus was undoubtedly very dangerous and would kill millions, maybe billions, unless it was stopped.

  But it would be stopped.

  The world didn’t just end because some group of deviants got their hands on a vial of germs. His life wouldn’t end just because Svensson or whoever was pushing his buttons wanted some nukes. Things just didn’t work like that.

  That was three days ago, T minus eighteen, give or take a few days if they believed the models at the CDC. Now it was T minus fifteen, and Mike Orear was converting to Theresa’s religion of fear.

  He sat in his office and studied the spread of legal-pad notes in front of him. They all screamed the same thing, and he knew what they were screaming, but he knew there was a mistake here somewhere. Had to be. Just had to be.

  He’d talked to Theresa a dozen times in the last three days, and each time he’d asked if anyone had made any progress on an antivirus, expecting that eventually she would respond in the affirmative. She would say one of the labs in Hong Kong or Switzerland or at UCLA had made a breakthrough.

  But she didn’t. On the contrary, the labs working on the problem were learning just how unlikely finding any antivirus in less than two months would be.

  News about a highly virulent outbreak of a mutated viral vaccine, dubbed the Raison Strain, on a small island south of Java had hit the wires yesterday morning, and the wires were burning hot. The population of the island was roughly two hundred thousand, but there was no airport, and the ferries to and from had been suspended. The island was isolated, and the virus contained. No other shipments of the vaccine had been released.

  Given the nature of the virus, the World Health Organization, together with the Centers for Disease Control, had put up unrestricted funds and massive rewards for an antivirus that would save the two hundred thousand people who would otherwise die in less than three weeks. Contracts were being bought out by the government to free up all of the major labs across the country. The healthcare community had gone nearly ballistic.

  A red herring, Mike thought, a red herring for sure. And even then the networks were reporting a watered-down version of the story. They understood the threat of panic and they were playing ball.

  But they didn’t know the half of it, Mike thought. Not even a hundredth of it. How could a threat of this magnitude not leak to the press? How many other newsagents were sitting in their offices right now, thinking the same thought? Maybe they were all afraid to run outside and declare to the world that the sky was about to fall. The story was too big. Too unbelievable.

  He stood and walked to the mirror on his wall. Opened his mouth and looked at his gums. Stretched his cheeks and peered around his eyeballs. There was no indication at all that he was infected with a killer virus. But he was. He’d given Theresa a blood sample just to be sure, and it had come back positive. He didn’t know if he’d caught it from her or from someone else that day, but according to her report, he was a dead man walking.

  Mike returned to his desk and stared at his notes. He’d spent most of the last two days scouring the electronic highways and making discreet phone calls in his attempt to piece this puzzle together, and now that it was together, he wasn’t sure his effort had been a good idea.

  Fact: The president had gone underground for the last four days. The official word was that, due to health concerns, he’d canceled three fund-raising dinners and an alternative-energy lobbying trip to Alaska. He was having some polyps on his colon checked out—routine stuff, they said. He had even gone to the hospital on two occasions. Maybe there was some truth to the polyps story.

  Fact: The Russian premier had canceled a trip to the Ukraine due to pressing matters connected with Russia’s energy crisis. Another good cover. But Russia’s entire naval fleet had also been recalled and was now converging on several major ports. For what purpose?

  Fact: No fewer than eighty-four military transport columns had been spotted headed east in the last two days alone. The rails were no exception. There was a lot of military hardware headed to the East Coast. Nothing that would spark a wave of concern to anyone who didn’t see the whole picture, but surely some of the officers in charge suspected something, especially if they married this movement of arms with the steady repositioning of navy vessels headed to various eastern seaports.

  Fact: The French government had gone virtually AWOL. Two sessions of the National Assembly had been canceled, and a number of papers were asking some troubling questions about the sudden departure of their prime minister, supposedly on an unscheduled vacation. To make matters even more interesting, the bulk of the French army had been called to its northern border for what they called emergency exercises.

  Fact: The highest offices in England, Thailand, Australia, Brazil, Germany, Japan, and India, plus another six nations, had gone oddly silent over the past three days.

  These were five of twenty-seven facts that Mike had painstakingly compiled over the past forty-eight hours. And they all said that the most powerful people in the world were as concerned with something as Theresa was with this Raison Strain. Maybe more so.

  And why had he compiled all of this information? Because Mike knew he couldn’t keep his mouth shut for long. When he did open his mouth and let the world know what was really happening while they went about daily life as if all was just peachy, he would have to substantiate his claims with his own data, not data that pointed to Theresa. He felt bound to certain rules, even if the world was in a countdown.

  “This is nuts,” he mumbled.

  Yesterday he’d dropped the finance anchor, Peter Martinson, at the airport for a flight to New York. “Hypothetical question,” Mike had said.

  “Shoot.”

  “Let’s say you had some information that you knew would affect the markets tomorrow. Say you knew the markets were going to crash, for example. You have an obligation to report it?”

  Peter chuckled. “Depends on the source. Insider trading? Off-limits.”

  “Okay then, let’s say you knew that a comet was going to wipe out Earth, but you were sworn to secrecy by the president of the United States because he didn’t want to start a panic.”

  “Then you go out in a flame of glory, spilling your guts to the world just before dying with the rest.”

  He’d forced a small laugh and changed the subject. Peter had prodded him once but then let it go. He left promising to return with the definitive word on whether the market was going to crash in the next week or so.

  A knock sounded on Mike’s door. He shuffled the papers together. “Come in.”

  Nancy Rodriguez, his coanchor on their late-afternoon show, What Matters, poked her head in. “You going down to the meeting?”

  He’d forgotten that the news director had called the meeting to review a new evening lineup. “Go ahead. I’ll be right down.”

  She pulled the door closed.

  He stuffed the papers in his right-hand drawer. Why was he going to a meeting about a new lineup anyway? Why wasn’t he back in North Dakota visiting his parents and friends? Why wasn’t he bungee jumping at Six Flags or buying a Jaguar or stuffing lobster down his mouth? Or better still, why wasn’t he down at the church confessing to the priest? The thought stopped him.

  A slow wave of heat spread over his head and down his back. This was really happening, wasn’t it? It wasn’t just a story. It was his life. Everyone’s life.

  How could he not tell them?

  THE DOOR opened. “I’ll try to get you the paper,” Monique whispered. She was speaking about the antivirus.


  Thomas twisted. Carlos walked into the room, followed by a man Thomas hadn’t yet met. He was tall and walked slowly with a white cane, favoring his right leg. His black hair was greased back. Svensson. He’d seen pictures in Bangkok.

  The Swiss looked like he was smothering a temptation to gloat. Carlos, on the other hand, looked more grim.

  The man from Cypress pulled the chair from the desk to the middle of the room, walked up to Thomas, grabbed his handcuffs, and hauled him up. Thomas stood and staggered backward before his shoulder joints were unreasonably strained.

  “Sit,” Carlos ordered, pointing four fingers at the chair. His fingernails were long but neatly manicured. He smelled like European soap.

  Thomas walked to the chair and sat. Carlos herded Monique to the sink, where he handcuffed her to the towel rack. Why?

  Svensson moved around Thomas slowly. “So this is the man who has given us both the world and a world of trouble. I must say, young man, you look younger than your pictures.”

  Thomas stared at Monique. He could take care of the old man—even with handcuffs it would hardly be a challenge. But Carlos was another matter. Carlos walked behind him and made the thought pointless by quickly securing his ankles to the chair legs with duct tape.

  “I understand you have a few skills that make you quite valuable,” Svensson said. “You found us; Armand regards that with some fascination. He wants you in France. But I have some questions of my own to ask first, and I’m afraid I’m going to have to insist that you answer them.”

  “You need both of us alive until the end,” Thomas said.

  The scientist chuckled. “Is that so?”

  “Only a fool would eliminate the two people who first made this all possible with information they alone had.”

  Svensson stopped circling. “Perhaps. But I now have that information. At some point your usefulness becomes a matter of history.”

  “Maybe. But when?” Thomas asked. “When does the virus mutate again? What kind of antivirus will be needed then? Only we know the answers, and even then, we don’t know all of them yet. Armand is right.”

  He didn’t know who Armand was, but he assumed it was a person Svensson worked for.